Who’s in the path of the big storms tonight?

[iris lilies]

By the national weather service has been issuing dire warnings about tonight‘s storms. Guessing winds of 90 miles. Tornadoes starting up everywhere. Hail.


It’s 6 PM here and it’s been gusty for the past three hours.

[bae]

Yipes!


Yesterday here it was lovely, calm, and sunny. About 60 degrees.

I popped into a place for lunch, had lunch, stepped out, and the skies opened. Temp had dropped to ~40. Lightning and thunder, which is *very* rare here. Hail, snow, sleet. I was drenched in the 2 block walk to my car. In the 5 minute drive to my house, snow had accumulated on my car and in my driveway.

30 minutes later it was warm and sunny again. Very weird.

[Tybee]

Stay safe, IL. We had big gusts of wind on Friday and lost power for 24 hours. Today was sunny and 55. Still have a foot and a half of snow on the ground though.

[Tradd]

Yep, me! 33 degrees above average today in the Chicago area. 76 when I left work. Only been this warm this early maybe 4 other times. Very windy. I’m topping off a few battery banks and my rechargeable fans. Doing laundry.

Supposed to hit here about 10ish tonight.

I thought of you, IL.

High wind warning for tomorrow through noon. Then bits of snow and rain Sunday - 44.

[iris lilies]

oh yeah, wish I could get ready for electric outages.

I grabbed the big flashlight oops it’s out of batteries. We don’t have backup battery for it. So I called DH who is out of town and asked him where is our lantern? He didn’t know where it is. Then He said try the light that he uses in construction. That stupid thing doesn’t work either, it has no juice.

This is all piling onto my car controller battery that ran out while I was at the store a couple weeks ago. It wouldn’t work, and then it did, and then it didn’t. Clearly, the battery needed to be changed.

I have told DH that smart people, people who are organized in their lives, replace their batteries every January, no matter what, no matter if the juice is still there or not. But he’s too cheap and he doesn’t want to do that. He wants to wait until the battery is used up. oh also, he pulled the same thing with my red car a few months ago. The battery was going down, we knew it, I told him “please replace the battery. It is near to not starting.” He didn’t do that and one day when I needed to drive this car, it wouldn’t start. Dead battery.

i’m just waiting for the battery for our condo garage to stop working. It’s a very old garage door system that requires a controller to open from the inside. I’m already calculating how I could get out of the car, run over to the device, that controls the door, push it, and run back into my car by the time the garage door closes and I don’t know if I can.
I will be stuck in that stupid garage.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk about batteries in the irisLilies household.

This BS will not be taking place in the future.

[Tradd]

LOL, Iris. That’s funny. I have batteries in multiple places in my apt. Thanks for reminding me to put batteries in the little lantern I have. I also have a couple of headlamps and several flashlights. Could probably use another lantern.

[ToomuchStuff]

https://youtu.be/3h5EjZm4qk4?si=vwWZkgOSCkWOqW4s&t=23

Strong winds throughout the metro area here. Not sure of the drivers status.

[catherine]

I hope everyone stays safe! I think we're escaping this one.

[pinkytoe]

Wondering about my 81 yr old brother in STL. Hope it wasn't as bad as predicted.

[iris lilies]

Wondering about my 81 yr old brother in STL. Hope it wasn't as bad as predicted.
St. Louis had some wind. I’m seeing people posting trees toppled and building tops fall in, but don’t worry. I think it’s very spotty from what I could tell, no wide spread damage. I guess we’ll know more in the light of day tomorrow


Here in Hermann it’s pretty much over with no serious wind and hardly any rain

[KayLR]

Yipes!


Yesterday here it was lovely, calm, and sunny. About 60 degrees.

I popped into a place for lunch, had lunch, stepped out, and the skies opened. Temp had dropped to ~40. Lightning and thunder, which is *very* rare here. Hail, snow, sleet. I was drenched in the 2 block walk to my car. In the 5 minute drive to my house, snow had accumulated on my car and in my driveway.

30 minutes later it was warm and sunny again. Very weird.

Yep, I was walking to the mailbox during that sunny pleasant part, and running back through hail. I didn't even throw a jacket on when I left because it was so "spring-like!"

My younger sister lives in AR & is under tornado watch. But she says they've had lovely weather til today.

[Tradd]

I was watching Max Velocity on YT and thete were a lot of tornadoes in the STL area. Southern MO and AR, too.

I fell asleep about 10 so I’m not sure what happened here in northern IL. Going to be really windy today.

[happystuff]

Seem to be missing this one as well. Rain over night, but nothing serious (so far) at all.

Everyone please stay safe!!!!

[iris lilies]

St. Louis airport is closed because storms blew out windows in one terminal. There’s a great video of a Southwest Airlines plane flying in front of a tornado.

[Tradd]

Iris, if you're lookin for lanterns, here is what I ordered yesterday. They get good reviews on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08Q38992D?ref_=ppx_hzod_title_dt_b_fed_asin_title _0_0

Do you have a battery operated radio? Small ones are less than $20 on Amazon.

When you're looking to get lanterns, etc., it good to standardize to one battery size. Energizer batteries are better than the Duracell coppertop, which are prone to leaks. The Energizer ultimate lithium are best of all. Everything I have is AA except for headlamp, which is AAA. I have to keep the AAA on hand for my wireless keyboards, anyway.

[KayLR]

My sister has a horse training ranch and owns three horses. A tornado hit them directly last night and brought down the barn and all outbuildings. Uprooted trees. The horses were all injured, but will recover. She and her husband were out in their sleepwear and boots trying to rescue the horses from under debris. One (her best show horse) was finally found out in the arena at the spot where she usually ties him up for brief times, like he knew she'd find him there. Her chickens and barn cat are all gone.

The firemen had to clear uprooted trees on the road to get to them. They found an emergency vet to help treat the horses.

Their home was untouched but they are out of power right now. They do have a generator.

They live south and west of Little Rock. Feel so badly for them; they've put so much work into the ranch. Now all needs to be done over. They are in their 60s.

[Tradd]

I think this is a good catalyst for everyone to check their storm season supplies. I remember last year, we had an evening of 10-12 tornadoes at the end of FEBRUARY. That is VERY unusual. Having your stuff ready by the beginning of March for tornado/t'storm season isn't a bad idea.

And don't forget you can use a fully charged laptop to charge your phone. I remember reading about someone during Hurricane Sandy in NY saying that they watched movies on their laptop until it died. Realized later they should have saved it for charging their phone. I make sure my Kindle is fully charged for when storms are forecast. It's much more energy efficient than my iPad.

[Tradd]

My sister has a horse training ranch and owns three horses. A tornado hit them directly last night and brought down the barn and all outbuildings. Uprooted trees. The horses were all injured, but will recover. She and her husband were out in their sleepwear and boots trying to rescue the horses from under debris. One (her best show horse) was finally found out in the arena at the spot where she usually ties him up for brief times, like he knew she'd find him there. Her chickens and barn cat are all gone.

The firemen had to clear uprooted trees on the road to get to them. They found an emergency vet to help treat the horses.

Their home was untouched but they are out of power right now. They do have a generator.

They live south and west of Little Rock. Feel so badly for them; they've put so much work into the ranch. Now all needs to be done over. They are in their 60s.


Oh, my! Good thoughts their way.

[iris lilies]

Kay, I’m sorry to hear about your sister‘s farm and her horses being injured. Here just a few miles from me, Purina Farms had a direct hit from the tornadoes in the area, but they had already evacuated all of the animals they keep there to a safe spot and everyone is OK. The ducks were placed into cat carriers and we’re not happy ducks

this photo I’m showing below is not one of my cats. These are not my cats. I think they’re hilarious because they’re from a St. Louis resident who shooed his cats down the basement so they would be safe from tornadoes. You can tell how angry they are about that.

6275

[KayLR]

St. Louis had some wind. I’m seeing people posting trees toppled and building tops fall in, but don’t worry. I think it’s very spotty from what I could tell, no wide spread damage. I guess we’ll know more in the light of day tomorrow


Here in Hermann it’s pretty much over with no serious wind and hardly any rain

My sister's 12-yr+ barn cat (and the chickens) were thought to be casualties. Miraculously the cat showed up this evening. No idea where he'd been but he was fine. Sis said he was probably sitting out of sight all day being judgy. :-D Glad she can joke a bit.

[rosarugosa]

Kay, I'm sorry about your sister's farm.

[Tybee]

Kay, that's awful. I have had horses and this has always been my nightmare scenario and what scares me about getting them again. Down in South Carolina we had hurricanes and evacuating the horses was really difficult.

[happystuff]

Kay, sorry about your sister's far and animals. Glad the cat showed up! Hoping for quick healing for the horses.

[littlebittybobby]

okay---any time i hear about cats being in harms way, i get really, really upset! Yup. So yeah-0--you kids w/catts need one a them underground storm bunkers, so you AND the catts can remain safe. Yup. Plus, plenty of crunchies to eat, till it blows over. Hope thatt helps you somew.

[littlebittybobby]

okay----SFD had storms, St lo had storms, Ky had storms--- VERY devastating storms----and now, the forecast here is---MORE STORMS. But yeah---we need some nice spring weather, not more storms. I havent fixed all the damage from the last one, yet.